


Don't Say It

by Noble_Thought



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Communication, F/F, Interpersonal Connection, Intimacy, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:54:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24344593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noble_Thought/pseuds/Noble_Thought
Summary: For Catra, two words don't mean all that much.  Except when they mean everything. When she questions what they mean to the one they belong to.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 517





	Don't Say It

_Don’t say it, don’t say it._

Catra clenched her jaw as she heard Adora’s footsteps coming down the passageway, felt it through the soft pads on her fingertips, tough and sensitive at once. She knew that gait, confident, strong, but… tentative.

Catra opened her eyes as the energy door faded, the leaves and vines retracting a second later to cover the sterile white walls with more pleasing greenery.

“Catra,” Adora said, her voice warming and still sending a thrill through her, even after all these weeks aboard ship, traveling to their first destination. “It’s getting close to dinnertime. Bow’s made something… interesting. I’m honestly not sure if I want to try it.”

_Don’t say it. Don’t say it_.

“Yeah?” She managed it, just barely, and swallowed. “I think I saw some horde rations somewhere. Kyle and Lonnie, I think.” Catra stood and brushed her shoulder against Adora’s, stopped, and turned. “Be like old times again, huh? You and me. The crew.”

“Haha.” Adora rubbed the back of her neck, looking down, then up into Catra’s eyes. “Why—” She cut herself off before she could ask the question both of them had been avoiding, and coughed into her hand. “Still, feeling adventurous?”

“Hey, little danger never hurt anyone. Bow’s cooking, though…” Catra ran the tip of a finger along Adora’s jaw, then pressed it under her chin, drawing her lover with her down the passageway. 

“You may have a point,” Adora murmured through a tight jaw, grinning as Catra let just a little of her claw settle in, then withdrew it. “You do have a point.”

“I know I do.” Point made, Catra fell back and clasped Adora’s hand, feeling the strength of her grip briefly, the warmth of her flowing into her sensitive fingertips like a blessing. “How’s our course?”

“Still a straight line.” Adora squeezed again and tugged her closer, letting go briefly to slip her arm around Catra’s waist. “We still have a week until our first destination.”

“It didn’t feel like it took…” Catra paused to open another gateway and step into the main hall that served as dining room, meeting area, and anything else they needed. The one-time adoration chamber where Horde Prime had listened to his brainwashed clones had been transformed, all of the pods torn out and returned to the surface.

In their place, Perfuma had grown a complicated web of trees and vines, and Entrapta had made a small star, really a First One’s light rigged for Etheria’s wavelength, to cast out the shadows for real.

It was headquarters, and while most of Horde Prime’s things were gone, the control panel for the ship remained.

They still hadn’t explored the entire ship, and it would have to remain until they found a backup control console that wasn’t hidden away in a maze where only Glimmer could get to it reliably.

Everyone else was gathered already, save Glimmer, but she never seemed to stay in one place for long, even weeks after regaining her magic. 

So that left Catra, the last to join. Again. All because she had some stupid hangup about saying two simple, stupid words. And Adora, she knew, had been here before anyone else, training, exercising mind and body. Catra could smell the sweat on her, even though she’d showered.

“I didn’t think it took that long getting back from you rescuing me, Adora,” Catra finished, perking her ears up and grinning at her lover. Her love. Her pillar.

“It did, but we were so freaking out that…” Adora grimaced as they got closer to the table and pulled her closer. “I’m sorry, my love, if we die this day, know that I will always love you.” She kissed Catra suddenly, quickly, in front of everyone, on the lips.

Then it was over, leaving Catra flushed and her tail lashing and bushed out. “H-hey!”

Adora laughed and leaned against her, then pointed at the food. “Seriously. This might be our last supper.”

Bow glowered at her and finished moving one of the blackened, salt-crusted _things_ from one plate to another. It clunked. Bow winced.

“I will have you know that this recipe was passed down from my dad’s grandparents,” Bow said stiffly. “I have been working on it since we left Etheria.”

“Did you make a new batch every time?” Adora teased, leaning over to look at the platter of desiccated meat, sniffing, and wrinkling her nose. “It looks like lizard meat.”

“I, um…” Bow poked at it and cut off a chunk with one of the sharp knives Scorpia had found… somewhere. “It’s…” The inner cut looked just as black as the outside.

“We perfected and improved upon the batch each time!” Wrong Hordak crowed, throwing his arm around Bow’s shoulders. “Tinkering on the food is like tinkering with technology, brother. Try and try again.” He snagged the chunk from Bow’s knife and swallowed it without chewing.

Considering what the clones had left behind in the way of food, that wasn’t surprising. _Edible_ barely described the scraps Prime had left for his followers.

Catra groaned and rubbed at her brow. “I’m… suddenly very glad that we never tried to steal rebellion food. You might have won.”

Glimmer teleported in, glanced at the food once, covered her eyes, and teleported it away. “Bow. No.”

“Glimmer! I’ve been working on that for a week!”

“I know you were. That’s why it’s now in the ship’s reactor.” Glimmer clasped him by the shoulders and butted her head against his. “I know you wanted this, Bow, and I’m sorry it didn’t work out. Keep practicing, alright? And please, _please_ don’t let Wrong Hordak give you tips. _I_ only cooked with him because I know at least a little about cuisine.”

“Brother Bow has been a great teacher,” Wrong Hordak proclaimed, throwing his arms out wide. “He has taught me how to repair technology!”

“Repairing technology won’t work on food, buddy,” Catra said with a grin and a wink. “You can’t repair food.”

“Horde rations—” Lonnie said, speaking up finally. “They… um. Nevermind.”

“Okay. You can’t repair _most_ food.” Catra conceded, glancing aside and flicking her tail against Adora's leg. “Right?”

“Heh. Yeah. You just repaired it with more rations.” Adora fidgeted, her fingers tightening on Catra’s hip. “So… I’ve been hoping to try. Cooking, I mean. For Ca—” she coughed. “For all of you.”

Glimmer glanced aside at Bow, lips pursed. “Why don’t the two of you go make a _fresh_ attempt at dinner, and not something freeze-dried three times and overbaked four. Catra, a word?”

This conversation had been coming. Catra knew it had. Glimmer had been building up to it, and saw it in every line of her, every variation on tone.

“Um, sure. Just, uh…” Adora swallowed and leaned over to kiss Catra lightly on the cheek. “I love you.”

Before she could blink, Glimmer was at Catra’s side, gripping her elbow, and then she was elsewhere in the ship, alone with Glimmer. They were, in fact, in the same room Glimmer had been held captive in. The scratches on the floor just outside the energy door were still there, if she wanted to look. They’d not had a chance to repair any of the damage from their escape beyond what Prime had already accomplished in the weeks he’d spent corrupting Etheria.

She’d been here several times, wandering the ship and looking for answers she wasn’t sure she’d find, would sit on the bed and stare out into the slowly shifting pattern of stars and nebulae, thinking about Adora, their lives as children and young adults in the Fright Zone, watching bits and pieces of it play out in her memory in the void.

Now, Glimmer stood at the window, arms folded, staring out into space, her reflected expression unreadable, her eyes darting to and fro, seeing things Catra was almost certain were her fault.

Her mother, Angella, trapped in a dimensional void. Catra’s fault. Etheria brought back into the rest of the universe. Catra’s fault.

The universe freed of Prime’s depredations.

_My doing? In part?_

She shook her head. Not on purpose. None of what she’d done after Adora had left her to the horde had felt like it’d been on purpose. She hadn’t known Hordak’s plans, his ultimate goals, she’d just followed him because… because he wanted Adora back. And she’d wanted that, too. And she’d hated him for making her prove that she was just as good as Adora. Just as capable.

_Did I hate her?_

Here, with the void always on the edge of leaking in, it was easier to think that she might have. Hated her for being better. A better _person_. 

_I loved her. Always._ She’d never hated Adora. She’d hated the way others put Adora above her, and the way Adora never seemed to notice that others did it. Adora… had never seen it that way. Catra had always been her equal in her eyes. She’d never looked down at Catra. It was always the others thinking Adora did it out of pity.

_And I listened to them._

In the calm months since, before they started off on their interstellar voyage, she’d had plenty of time to think about what she’d gone through, but not _enough_ time. Every moment had been filled, it felt like, with preparations, with rebuilding, with _administration_. To the point that when Catra finally collapsed into Adora’s bed, she could barely form cogent thoughts beyond relief.

Those months had also seen their first time making love. Awkward. Full of false starts and stops. Catra’s heart hammering in her chest when Adora’s hands finally touched her and her lips found more than her mouth. She, terrified that she’d hurt her somehow, relieved when she finally heard Adora cry out her name, trembling and holding onto Catra as if she might fall off the world if she ever let go.

It was those vulnerable moments that helped her heal. Those shared passions and awkwardness, the explorations, the teasing that was slowly coming back as they both healed body and mind.

It was in one of those vulnerable moments that… 

Catra shook her head slowly. It was stupid. She knew it was stupid, but it still hurt.

_“Hey, Adora,” Catra whispered, staring into her lover’s eyes, as they opened and stroking back her blonde hair, forehead streaked with sweat, her breath shuddering as she held Catra close._

_“Haaa…” Adora’s smile widened into a smirk. “I’m beginning to think my name is Heyadora.”_

It was a tease. Like any of the dozens they shot back and forth when they were with the others. But never in their bedroom. Never when Catra was at her most vulnerable, when she opened herself up to her lover, let her see everything.

It was just the dumbest thing to worry about. How she said Adora’s name. But that moment… she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

_Why can’t I stop worrying about it? It didn’t mean anything._

Except it did. She stared at her hands, clenching and drawing out her claws, letting them slide back in slowly. Reactions to muscle movement. She had to be careful, making love to Adora. But she was. Always.

The scars on Adora’s back reminded her what happened when she wasn’t.

“Why here?” Catra asked finally, sheathing her claws fully.

“Because here…” Glimmer sighed uncrossed her arms and planted her hand on the window. “Here is where I saw you for who you really are, Catra.”

“Oh?” Catra forced her voice to calm. “What did you see?”

“That you were as scared as me. Lonelier than I could imagine ever being. Here…” Glimmer tapped at the glass with her thumb. “I don’t feel as angry at you. I look at you in the reflection and I see that scared, lonely woman, looking for some connection to her lost love.” Glimmer’s eyes met hers in the reflection. “I can’t feel the anger, the hatred, I felt for you before I knew… you loved her.”

Catra swallowed, forced a grin. “Come here a lot?”

“Less often lately. You’re both coming out of your shells. More and more.” Glimmer turned around and leaned against the window, her arms crossing again under her breasts. “It’s still hard, looking at you and not seeing…” She lifted her chin, a small smile crossing her lips before fading. “Horde scum.”

Catra plucked at her outfit. One of dozens that were all she had that she’d been able to salvage from the Fright Zone before they left. All identical. Nobody got to be original in the Fright Zone. Excepting for biological needs.

“Same, Sparkles.”

Glimmer chuckled and relaxed minutely, her arms falling to her sides. “And there’s no point in stretching this out any further.”

“Agreed. What’d you want to say?”

“Are you falling out of love with Adora?”

Catra stared at her, the words percolating slowly through her mind. They made no sense. Falling _out_ of love? With the only one who _knew_ her? Really knew her. The only one that’d recognized her worth as a person in the Fright Zone. “What?”

“Are. You. Falling. Out. Of.”

“I heard you!” Catra snapped, tail lashing against the bed’s coverlet. “Why in the wastes would you think that? I love her more every day, Glimmer.”

Glimmer’s brow rose. “She says the same thing, you know. But…”

“But?” Catra’s heart flopped in her chest and skipped a few beats. “But what?”

“Nothing she’s said,” Glimmer said, sighing and shaking her head. “It’s… what you’re not saying. As much. When it matters, Catra. She hasn’t noticed yet, because she’s dense, but she will.”

“You noticed?”

“Of course I noticed.” Glimmer tossed her head, a small smile appearing and disappearing in a flash. “It’s my job to notice when things change on the team, Catra. And, believe it or not, I want you and Adora happy.”

“Me?”

“You. I know we have our differences of opinion, but I’m not an idiot. After all we’ve been through together?” A tip of Glimmer’s head to the bed, then at the darkness of space told of their adventures in space. Needing to trust each other. _Needing_ to. Now… that trust had to be earned. “It’s not just because you make Adora happy. Seeing you happy…”

Catra stayed quiet, her tail twitching on the coverlet as she stared past Glimmer’s shoulder at the void. “You like seeing me happy?”

“I like seeing everyone happy.” Glimmer’s eyes on her felt like a weight. An accusation. “Happy crew makes for a happy voyage.” Her voice softened. “What happened, Catra? Between you?”

“Nothing happened.” Catra turned around on the bed, feet folded together, hunching her back. It was stupid. She was _telling_ Glimmer something happened. But nothing had. Not that Adora knew about anyway.

A hesitant hand settled on Catra’s back, shifted to her shoulder, and squeezed. “Come on. It’s me. Sparkles.”

“It’s stupid.”

“Love isn’t stupid.” Glimmer’s hand tightened on her shoulder, then loosened. A few seconds later, the bed shifted as she settled in behind Catra. The hand came back, gentle, on her shoulder. “I love Bow. And yes, he and I can be dumb together sometimes, like dinner, but that doesn’t make it less _love_. Right?”

“No. Of course not. You were both always dumb about that kind of thing.” Catra snorted. “And so am I.” Really dumb. It didn’t mean anything. Adora hadn’t meant anything by it. She knew that. But she couldn’t stop thinking about it. That Adora had said something meant she’d noticed it and… didn’t like it? _Was that what it meant?_

“And so is Adora. She’s…” Glimmer groaned and turned around on the bed, leaning back against Catra. “She’s _really_ dumb about that kind of thing sometimes.”

“Fine.” Catra slumped forward, cradling her tail in her lap so it wouldn’t betray her. “Fine. I…” She closed her eyes, tried to think of Adora’s smile, that first kiss, the first time she’d said ‘I love you.’ The second time had been even sweeter. And the third. “I can’t help it. I _always_ say ‘Hey Adora.’”

It started with Glimmer’s shoulders shaking against Catra’s, then the snort that began the real laughter as she lost it and slid to the floor, gasping out gales of laughter.

“Hey! No laughing! Stop that!” Catra spun around and dug her claws into the edge of the bed, glowering down at the source.

It took long moments for Glimmer to cover her mouth, stifling, poorly, her giggles. “S-sorry. That is… dumb.”

“I know!” Catra laughed a little. “I know it is. But…” The laughter died, and she stared at her hands gripping the edge of the bed, her claws digging into the rough foam. She fell back, retracting them, and seized her tail to keep it from lashing. “But…”

Glimmer’s giggles died away and she climbed up to rest her arms crossed on the bed, still with a smirk. “She made a stupid joke about it, didn’t she?”

Catra’s heart leapt into her throat, a flush rising up her neck. “You didn’t hear that, did you? _Please_ tell me you didn’t hear that!”

“No. Relax. But I know Adora.” Glimmer tipped her head to the side and stuck out her tongue. “Whenever she’s tense, or nervous she tries to defuse the situation by saying something silly. But usually just a little dumb. But _adorable_.” 

_Was she nervous? Why?_ Conscious of Glimmer’s eyes on her, she chuckled and reached out to poke that cute nose. “She’ll kill you if you use that joke on her.”

“Oh, I know. She’s tried.” Glimmer smirked. “More than once. Funny how she likes being called adorable about as much as you like being called cute.”

“I’m not cute.”

“Hee.” Glimmer grinned and stuck out her tongue. “But you are. When you’re together. So… why did you stop saying it? ‘Hey, Adora,’ I mean.”

“The stupid joke thing.” Catra looked away, outside the ship. “You already figured that out on your own.”

“Mmhm.” Glimmer tapped her nose with a light finger. “But what I can’t figure out… is _why_ did the stupid joke make you want to stop saying it?”

“Because I always say it.” Catra looked away, shrugging, and let herself flop to the side, still holding her tail. “I don’t want to…” She shrugged again, gritted her teeth, and flipped over. “I don’t want to be… stale.”

“Stale? Catra… you are about as stale as uncooked dough.” Glimmer huffed and prodded her back with a stiff finger. “What makes you think she’ll think you’re going stale?”

“Because… I _always_ say it when I see her. And… I said it after we… um.” Catra curled her fingers against the bed, tail flicking. Unconsciously, a purr started low in her throat. “You know.”

“Catra!”

“What?” Catra glanced over her shoulder, seeing Glimmer flushed to her hairline. “ _Now_ you’re squeamish? That’s when she made the joke!”

Glimmer groaned, burying her face in the bed. “Of course she did,” she muttered, voice muffled. “You are so going to _owe_ me for this. I didn’t sign on to be a relationship counselor.”

“I didn’t ask you to butt in!”

Silence fell between them for a while, Catra plucking at the bed while Glimmer groaned and grumbled wordlessly, no doubt thinking it’d been a mistake.

“I didn’t know you two were… doing it.”

Catra rubbed at her face. “We started before we left Etheria,” she admitted.

“I didn’t need to know that… but…” Glimmer growled into the bed and slapped her hand against it. “Now that I _do_. What’s it changed?”

“The way she glows in the morning after?” Catra asked.

“She’s She-Ra. She glows randomly.”

“Not like this,” Catra murmured, stroking down the rumple in the coverlet. “Not like when she’s happy and her heart’s open. When she… holds me. Afterwards. When she holds my hand on the way to breakfast.” It was like coming together with her again. The warmth and vitality flowing off her, into Catra, making her feel like… that first moment. The first time Adora had said the words. The first time Catra had said them.

“You’re… like that, too.” Glimmer prodded her back between the shoulder-blades. “You know, now, every time I see the two of you smiling gleefully, I’m gonna know.”

“And?”

“And I don’t want to think about the two of you doing it.” There was a pause, then Glimmer’s hand pressed against her back, fingers spreading wide. “But I’m glad it makes you both happy.”

Silence again, warmer, more companionable, as Catra stared at the bare metal wall, then at the threads and coverlet. At her fingers, her claws, and the light covering of fur up and down her arms. 

“You’re…” Glimmer’s fingers on her back tightened, then relaxed. “You’ve both teased each other around us. Why was that different?”

“I dunno.” It wasn’t like they hadn’t teased each other alone before. They had. For years. Years before they found intimacy. Before Catra felt like she could open herself to Adora, let her see what was in her heart. “We do tease each other… when we do it, y’know. Just…” It was mostly pillow talk. Whisperings and taunts interspersed with kisses and some wrestling. Deciding who would hold who into sleep.

“Just what?”

“She seemed…” Nervous. Scared. Uncertain about herself somehow after Catra had brought her to the heights of pleasure and held her until she came back fully to herself, before she opened her eyes and looked into hers. “Not her.”

The impulse had hit her then, to welcome her back from her journey, short though it was.

“Have you talked to her about it?” Glimmer’s fingers fell away as Catra tensed. “Of course you haven’t.”

“What do I even say?”

“Just tell her.”

“Uh. Yeah. No.”

“So you’re just going to bottle it up and sit on it?”

“Yeah.” She felt the punch coming before it landed, and twisted with it, diffusing its strength and rolling to face Glimmer. “Just until it goes away.”

“And the next time it happens?” Glimmer reached out, fingers held in tension to flick her nose, and Catra didn’t stop her. She deserved that much. “You need to learn how to deal with this kind of thing, Catra. In a healthy way. I don’t think _either_ of you learned that in the Fright Zone.”

“And you did?”

“I did. Mostly.” Glimmer shifted her gaze away, uneasiness in the set of her mouth. “Kinda. But I _know_ what’s _not_ healthy. And that’s bottling it up. What happens when the two of you bottle up so much that it just explodes?”

Catra flinched. That’d already happened. She knew what it looked like. She’d been there, seen it, _done_ it.

It looked like eight scars on Adora’s back that hurt to see, her fingers remembering the moment when Catra had inflicted them on the woman she loved. When the madness had finally taken hold of her, when she _knew_ that Adora was never coming back to the Fright Zone. To her.

“I don’t want that.”

“I don’t either. Neither does she.”

Catra’s fingers clenched on the bed, her claws held back. The pain of holding back tingled in her wrist and up her arm, more the harder she pressed. It wasn’t the same as making love to Adora… not the same at all. 

Making love to her was easy. It was easy to be gentle with her, easy to hold back as she pulled Adora along towards that moment, the moment she saw her lover’s heart bloom, when she _felt_ it against her fingertips.

She didn’t want her claws to touch Adora in anger ever again. Teasing. Tracing patterns around her breast, over her navel, drawing new giggles, new ways Adora could squirm, new ways Catra could draw her out of her shell to tackle her, to start the games before sleep. 

She was always teasing.

That’s how she was with Adora. That’s how she’d always been with Adora.

It hit her with the force of a hammerblow to the gut. _Are we already stale?_

Her throat ached as she swallowed, clenching her jaw, staring over Glimmer’s shoulder, then meeting her eyes. “What do I do? How do I fix it?”

Glimmer’s hand settled over hers and pressed back gently, pushing back her tension, smoothing her tendons and relaxing her fingers until the pain faded.

“Talk to her. I’ll be there if you need me.”

* * *

Her hand was on the door to the ‘kitchen,’ the room they’d converted to a kitchen, and looked through the green glow to where Adora, Bow, and Wrong Hordak working at different stations in the kitchen.

Adora had her tongue clenched between her teeth as she carved up some kind of roast with a knife that seemed entirely too big for the delicate work of cutting meat away from the bone. But then, she was used to wielding a massive greatsword. Maybe she wasn’t used to using small cutting tools.

“Silly,” Catra murmured, fingers curling on the solid light.

“Go on.” Glimmer swiped her hand down, unblocking the door and letting loose the scents of something more appetizing than… whatever Bow had been working on. It was, after all, part of survival training to know how to cook in the wilds. Usually just sticking things on sticks, though.

Adora cocked her head, and Catra could see her smile as she finished carving a strip of meat from a rib, then set down the knife and turned to wash her hands. She froze when she turned, her eyes flicking from Catra to Glimmer and back, uncertainty flashing across her features for an instant before she settled back into that easy smile, almost a smirk. Confident.

Catra recognized it for the mask it was. Now. The cork in the bottle. There was so much they weren’t saying to each other. She glanced back at Glimmer, trying to remember everything she’d said on their _walk_ back to the main chamber. Ten minutes, and it felt like Catra’s stomach had tried to crawl into her throat for every second of it.

Advice. Why did it feel like orders?

In a way, it would be easier if Glimmer _had_ ordered her. She could resent the other woman for it, then. But no. This was _her_ choice to talk to Adora, to uncork her feelings and… see what happened when she let the genie out.

First thing was first.

Catra took a deep breath and put on her best smile, hoping for the best. Wishing for the best.

It was just two words, after all.

“Hey, Adora.”

Two words that meant ‘I love you.’


End file.
